Thousands to Join Bali Mass Cleanup

This weekend, thousands of people will join in an effort to rid Bali’s beaches, rivers and jungles of rubbish and restore its natural beauty.

The mass cleanup is the initiative of One Island One Voice (OIOV), an umbrella movement of organisations and individuals wanting to reduce waste and create a “greener, cleaner Bali”.

“This event is not only a cleanup action, it is a chance to raise awareness and understanding about what really happens in Bali,” said Rima Agustina, one of the coordinators.

She said the action was as much about changing attitudes as cleaning up beaches. “All it takes is one or two hours of picking up trash and for most people the mindset is completely transformed. They would start thinking that those single-use plastics give more harm than benefits to community.”

The OIOV initiative will help collect tonnes of rubbish in every region in Bali. Some will be upcycled or turned into EcoBricks, which are plastic bottles packed solid with non-biological waste to make reusable building blocks.

Bali alone produces about 5,000 cubic metres of waste a day. With five legal rubbish dumps on the island, only about 25% of its waste is collected through official channels. The rest is burned, or dumped on roadsides and mountains and in rivers and the ocean.

OIOV spokeswoman Sara Craves says that cleanups are not the solution to Bali’s rubbish problem.

“They are just the way to raise awareness and a way to bring people together, and get them involved in the problem so we can start to find solution.”